In Remembrance: Strands
The following are my own selections of phrase fragments with a time poetic essence from the poetry of Mark Strand who died in November 2014. They are drawn from his various published poems, collectively published in Blizzard of One: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). I began seriously exploring Strand after reading a tribute to him in the New York Review of Books, January 8, 2015.
I was delighted to learn that the Academy of American Poets had introduced its 2015 National Poetry Month Poster featuring a line of poetry by Mark Strand from his poem, Easting Poetry. This year’s poster was designed by 2014 National Book Award finalist and New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast.
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"A snow flake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That's all
There was to it."
A Piece of the Storm (For Sharon Horvath).
"The lavender turns to ash."
Untitled.
" The winter sun had turned the elms and houses yellow."
I Will Love the Twenty-First Century.
"Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our time is becoming the architecture of next time."
The Next Time.
"What we desire more than season or weather,
is the comfort
Of being strangers, at least to ourselves."
The Night, The Porch.
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Facing Time
Facing time defines the
moment; the wrist merely the stage.
Dials, cases,
crowns, lugs and bands all dance for me.
My downward glance defines the present, now engaging me.
And the facings of times ahead of me, yet to
be.
© Maryhelen Raciti-Jones, January 2015
© James J. Raciti. Used by permission of the author.
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In Full Revolt
Again the crimson clouds turned dawn to morning—
but I ignore my ringing clock.
I feel the shower on my neck and shoulders,
although I am still nestled in my bed.
Again, I am in full revolt and plan
to sleep away the day;
but then through cross-woven lashes, I see
my shoes leaving for work without me.
© James J. Raciti. Used by permission of the author.
This poem appears in James J. Raciti's latest collection
of poetry, The Bird Chart Boy
published by Sunstone Press in March 2014.
It's the very end of August 2015, and I've just finished reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Novel Habits of Happiness. This is the the tenth book in the Isabel Dalhousie series. However, it's the first one I've read and I thoroughly enjoyed its descriptive Scottish passages. One of my favorites from it is:
“This was the North Sea, cold, blue, lapping at the jagged edge of the country, a reminder of where Scotland lay in the true nature of things; a place that was mostly water and wind and high empty sky; a place where the land itself seemed to be an afterthought, a farewell gesture from Europe.”
© Maryhelen Raciti-Jones, October 2015
As a companion to my posting, Sight to Last a Lifetime , October 9, 2015, it occurred to me that my readers might be interested to know that John Milton had to deal with blindness and railed against the limitations of the eye in his poem, Samson Agonistes (lines 93-97):
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August Serenity
It's the very end of August 2015, and I've just finished reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Novel Habits of Happiness. This is the the tenth book in the Isabel Dalhousie series. However, it's the first one I've read and I thoroughly enjoyed its descriptive Scottish passages. One of my favorites from it is:
“This was the North Sea, cold, blue, lapping at the jagged edge of the country, a reminder of where Scotland lay in the true nature of things; a place that was mostly water and wind and high empty sky; a place where the land itself seemed to be an afterthought, a farewell gesture from Europe.”
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Blogging to Nowhere ( with apologies to Walter Benjamin)
Blogging to Nowhere
Like jogging to Nowhere.
One post, then another.
Shop-keeps in time, each with its own wrist wears.
Housed along an Archive Arcade.
Like jogging to Nowhere.
One post, then another.
Shop-keeps in time, each with its own wrist wears.
Housed along an Archive Arcade.
Page views mean an audience.
Nowhere to be seen.
Watching,
Not speaking,
Not commenting.
Watching,
Not speaking,
Not commenting.
Who are they?
How do they find me?
What do they find, when they find me?
As I pass by them.
As I pass by them.
I research.
Then write.
Then post.
Then move on and do the same.
Then move on and do the same.
Does my content take them to a pause, a smile, a return to another page?
I can only keep blogging, jogging along my self-defined time transgressing, path.
Following Nowhere ... To Somewhere.
And then finding as I turnaround, a multitude of faces reading over my shoulder.
And then finding as I turnaround, a multitude of faces reading over my shoulder.
© Maryhelen Raciti-Jones, October 2015
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As a companion to my posting, Sight to Last a Lifetime , October 9, 2015, it occurred to me that my readers might be interested to know that John Milton had to deal with blindness and railed against the limitations of the eye in his poem, Samson Agonistes (lines 93-97):
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